Dimensional Pokings
by Whirl Feather
Summary: It wasn't like SkEye WANTED anything off to happen during her 'vacation', but hey; what happens happens, right? And she could easily take care of herself, anyway, heh. A shapeshifter, a Replica, and 13 Nobodies under one roof. Everything seems fine and friendly, but then Vexen pulled out a scalpel, and what about what she'd overheard...? How many hearts is a shapeshifter worth?
1. Oddities of Sight

**Author's Note: yello~! ^.^ This is my first KH fanfic, and just as a few fyi's;**

**This story is told from future first POV of my shapeshifter OC SkEye from Deviantart. And, well, let's jsut say that she tends to poke her nose in things. (To learn more about her, please go poke around my DA account; Iceluxray. Trust me, it'll help to understand the story)**

**I wasn't originally plannign on posting it here, but I figured hey why not? **

**Also please note that I've only played 358/2 Days, but a lot of my friends like KH, so I've done a good bit of research :3 And my writing style may have some big changes in the next few weeks, since we're reading Shakespeare in English class and I feel a lot better about authoring now :3 XD**

**Thanks for Reading~!**

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Ah,_ finally_: a vacation.

I inhaled the strong, sharp scent of familiar, friendly pine and tipped my head slightly back, into the breeze of the upper canopy, closed-eyed and itching for something. Some adventure; something to happen on my few days off from living with the Death Family.

Yeah, I took a leave; more _specifically_, I'd been feeling a trifle homesick for my old home Nature, and I had been growing or feeling a little bit more restless lately, anyway. (Don't get me wrong – it's a nice, rare, calm life with the Death Family, but ) In _fact,_ everybody seemed to have been steaming lately, in some way shape or form: Zenobia had tossed darts and throwing knives more often that week, and Nicole looked like she could flip a table and sock the crap out of it in an instant. I wouldn't doubt it if the vampire-demon went apecrap all over the big dining room/kitchen table by the time I was up the tree. Even _Julie_ had gone poof from all of the crap in the house. I hadn't seen her for days before _I_ even up and left! I suppose we all _did _need a few days to cool off, at least.

I assumed it was all just people getting on each other's nerves, since so many of them tended to _anyway_ on a _good_ day. I found it a perfect time to go for another adventure, or another hike, or another whatever-you-wanna-call-it, whatever-it'll-be.

And really, it was probably either some big problem in the house that no one wanted to tell me about 'cause apparently I have a childish mind or some personal bs or family bs (one family made of many families; go figure) or God knows whatever else. (Pfft. Childish? Well, see how happy-go-lucky you get when you don't have to grow up with the public brainwashing or whatever it is that I've watched go on in societies, and watch how off you act when you've grown up in the woods. Eh well. I'm monklike, what can I say? _I'm _fine with it, anyway.)

I inhaled deeper again, but the pine scent also brought a little tiny particle of pine needle up my nose and down my throat. I snorted and shook my head a couple times, soon crinkling my nose and blowing out it forcefully until the particle came whooshing out again in a small burst of air (actually carbon-dioxide, but air all the same). I watched it float away on the gentle breeze that generally blew this high in the canopy, almost going cross-eyed with the action, and laughed at it a bit. At the moment, I was up another huge old pine tree, more-or-less hanging off of the trunk at the very top (or _rather_, the highest section of the trunk that could _support_ me), right foot set on a thick branch, but other than that, free-swinging from the tree. And it was just on the edge of a ridge about six miles from the manor grounds, so from my perch I could see a small, low valley right out in front of me silhouetted against the late-day sky, filled to the brim with a dense canopied carpet of deep-green treetops. It's surprising that from just randomly running/hiking/milling about, I'd found a place as pretty as this one near the Death Manor; generally, the forestland in between the Death and Life manors was scraggily and decently-thin –pretty much that area of the country's standard forestland. But here, in _this_ area of the country….

I sucked in more air, just about tasting frosted pinecone on the roof of my mouth. _Simply verdant._

Something twinkled against the horizon of my third day alone's twilight, and I noticed it from the corner of my right eye. Since my senses were set at near absolute, the twinkle appeared bigger and brighter to me than it would have to anyone else but a hawk, and it almost made my eye twitch from the suddenness of it.

"Huh?" I hummed, looking to the ridge across from the one I perched on. A quaint, decently-sized city sat upon the higher ridge, around the top right of it, situated perfectly enough for the sunset to dye the whole town a gentle tangerine, its silhouette mostly being the rooftops of a few buildings and a large tower structure. I smiled warmly to myself. Seemed like a nice enough town, and I'd never been to it before (least I was pretty sure I hadn't), and I _was_ running a little low on a few articles of supplies…so I shrugged and turned back to the tree's trunk; barely noticing the slight bit of magic line that I felt snap more or less into place in the back of my head. _In fact,_ I don't even think that I noticed it until way later on! But I dully knew that it had to do with destiny and fate and crap, thinking rather dumbly over the facts and lessons corresponding to it as I made my way down the tree - like how magic has it mapped out for everybody and blaaah blaah blah and magic lines and connections and links and crap like that. Heheh, _facts~…._(that just about sums up how derpy my thought process was at the time!)

But that wasn't the only odd thing that I found happened at this point in Time, though. I found myself climbing down calmly and slowly – slow-_er _than usual, anyway. Normally, I make a jump for it and climb and hop about until I reached about ten feet above the ground then made a leap for it, or hooked the trunk and spun around, around, around _and around_ until I hit the ground at a sprint. This time though, I was climbing down like the bears do, hand-over-hand-over-foot, using the branches as momentary holds and watching my steps as I worked and picked my way down, then hopped off of the trunk at about five feet up. _What the Hades? _ I barely thought, again hardly registering things in my high of magic mixed with adventure and boredom and curiosity. _Another odd thing, not_ registering. Oh well. Didn't make much of a difference, anyway…

(Pffft! _Derp; yes_ it _did_, Dangit! Curse my past-spaced-out-i-ness!)

~*~ ( :o: ) ~*~

I stepped out of a side alley into the right side of the first apparently-major-street on the side of the city I'd entered in. I had crossed the valley on foot ('cause why not? Heheh), which took not much more than twenty to thirty minutes, probably, and had made the short hike up the wooded ridge to the town's right edge, the massive bell tower I'd seen in the silhouette earlier looming ever higher above everything as I got closer.

I looked around, just a step or two out of the alley I'd just come from.

_Hmm, quite a nice quaint lit'l town, if I do say so myself,_ I thought, putting my fists on my sides and looking up to the sunset of the west, over the rooftops of the town's sunny-rosy lower half. It shouldn't take long to explore this town, hopefully, so that I could get back to my campsite before the sun went down. The half-moon wouldn't be of much help as far as light goes, and witches' lights are crap in forests for multiple reasons, so it's not like I could dilly dally around here whilst the sun sets entirely. Yeah, hopefully this shouldn't take long. _A marketplace is generally in the center of town, so_ _I suppose I should start my venture there,_ I thought lightheartedly, turning my glance to the left and looking over the buildings opposite me and to the front.

By God, I really gotta stop jinxing myself like that, heheh.

I was just starting to look out over the bit of the lower half of the sun-ripened-colored town again, thinking about where the marketplace might be or where was the best place to start looking for it, _(well, since that's _one _half of the town, and _this_ is _another _half of the tow -)_ when I heard the unmistakable sound of Time-Space getting ripped clean open and reclosed a couple of times behind me and off to the left; a sucking, whirring sound. My ear 'feathers' perked at the sound, and I made a short gasp, swinging around on the spot, and once I saw that it was some weird black things surrounding me in a hoard, my instincts instantly went into overdrive and used the majority of the turn-around to set me into a crouched defensive position: one leg out to the side, my right hand down by my bent-under right leg to steady myself, and the whole of me resting on my right ankle. My left hand was swung around almost behind my back, having summoned my staff from where it had been propped up against a tree back at the campsite with a mentally-recited retrieval spell. It's almost as long as I am tall, carved up and down by me along the sides with all kinds of stuff, – charms/protection symbols, random letters and names in a few different languages that I'd rather not forget, a few family names that I'd run into over the years, adventure carvings, etc. – made of wholesome almost-light-brown wood, with a green…not _exactly_ a stone or gem, but actually, I'm not really sure what to call it without melting your mortal/human mind, so I guess I'll just describe it instead: It's shaped like a cut emerald, hexagonal with two parallel sides longer than the others, but a brighter, lighter green than an emerald, imbedded horizontally into the staff's wood, which puckered around its edges somewhat o make the bulgy top of the staff.

And all that movement within just a few seconds, as usual.

Normally, I'd keep it in my vest pocket, but hey, I was technically on vacation. Little did I expect to get attacked! Unless, y'know, I came upon another town that I'd been run out of _beforehand_…

Ahem, a-anyway,

I betcha I had one _heck_ of a glare on my face when I looked around at each of them, though none of them seemed to notice it or _anything_; about eight humanoid, about-my-height, all-black things, with zigzagging antennae draped behind themselves and small yellow eyes I all too well knew, mostly by senses and Magician's Intuition, not to look into too much. Just _looking_ at them _all_ reminded me of the countless times I'd been backed into a corner as young as even just a few years ago, scared and nervous and innocent, yet running for my life, and I also felt that same innocent, empty, cold fear sprout back into my core again from just looking round at the small group of weird beings that seemed to have budded from Time-Space itself, though Magician's Intuition told me also that _that _part, at least, was untrue. I wasn't even looking anywhere near their eyes for more than a split second, if at all, and when I did it was just a quick glance to see what these things looked like up-and-down.

I realized pretty soon that the scared feeling I had was just from their aura or energy, most likely, or that it was some ability of theirs to scare their prey, and I quickly shook my head a couple times to wake myself up and clear out my head, feeling myself heat up with rage taking that _minor_ touch of fear's place. I was _not_ going to fear anything, _especially_ today. _Apparently_ the uni—scratch that, _multi_verse didn't know the meaning of 'vacation'.

One of them lunged at me from the front-left, baring finger-like claws and probably all the strength a humanoid generally had, and I just barely had time and reaction enough to see it from the corner of my eye and retaliate.

I shifted my weight to my left side as it came upon me and rushed it myself, swinging my Asoka-Tano-styled-held staff around to my right and swiping across again with it along my arm as it collided with me. I spun the rest of the way around and brought myself back up to a sturdy standing position. I half expected it to fly back into and crumble a wall across the way, maybe half-fall a building, and was even ready to morph into a tiger in one bound and tear it to bits (_ONLY_ if necessary; I probably would have tapped a spot on its neck to knock it out instead, though I know _now_ that that wouldn't have worked), but instead of crashing into something, it burst into black wisps and mist as the staff cut through it, and my staff's gem flashed and made a pulsing sound for a second at the same exact time, the carvings and outlines and glyphs in its handle lighting up in a pulse down the wooden shaft along with.

I didn't notice it at the time, and it would only click a _lot_ much later on, but a rosy geometric shape had clattered to the ground where it once was, and would lay there literally until further notice.

I straightened up, still apparently spaced out since I had hardly registered the green energy/magic pulse, and looked round at the other Things, near _daring_ another to strike out with my eyes. If all it took was one swipe across with something so…so _normal,_ I supposed was the best word, as my staff, then it'd be easy to take them all out and be on my merry frickin' way. They didn't even leave behind any _bodies_, thank _God_; or else I'd have felt bad about it.

At about that moment is when the chakram flew by. My ear feathers flinched at a sudden whirling and turbulence of air from above the rooftops on the roadway's other side, and I had hardly a second to make a hypothesis as to what it could be when a glinting disk set aflame all along its blurred tips made a half-circle over a few rooftops and took out the three leftover Things to my left and all but two of them to my right, and a tall figure who, judging by the silhouette against the blazing sunset and dark buildings, could have been a Hedgehog Demon (don't laugh, they're mean business!) or at least a dead_ ringer_ for one hopped down in a leg-bent Spread Eagle from the same roof top and caught the spinning weapon upon landing before it could make another revolution. The two remaining Things rushed at him too, and clutching a flaming chakram in each hand, he'd easily taken them both out in a few blocks, parries, and swipes, just like I had.

_Huh, apparently these things go down easy! _I thought with a blank-but-impressed-surprised, wide-eyed look.

As the last of the wisps of smoke or smog or whatever it was – Soul Wisps like Julie's when her dress gets 'torn'? - dissipated from the ones he'd killed, (or so I'd thought. Is killed the right _word_ anymore?) I'd been scrutinizing his form against the sunset before it dinged in my head that maybe I should get out of here before things get too complicated, and they _always_ get too complicated!

I backed up a step or two slowly and half-crouched-creeping before anything (else) could happen again and decided that morphing into a cat form would be the best for a getaway. (I'll try and describe this process in a way that won't melt your brains) I took a deep, slow, clear breath as I took another step back, letting my entirety relax and holding the image of a young pale orange tabby cat in mind, flexed all my skeletal muscles at once, and immediately felt my body go tingly like it had 'fallen asleep' (except more needle-like feeling) and rapidly shrink. It wasn't long before I was opening my vibrant-green eyes, lifting my furry head, and glancing about: at my now-furred paws below me, a nice pale young orange color with brown, black, and gold stripes running down their length, at the now-larger-appearing world, at the figure against the fiery sunset turning –

_Whoah._

_He's got my eyes!~_

Don't ask me why I thought that cheerily, but I did. I even laughed a little. It's not every day you see somebody with as vivid green eyes as yours, even _after_ meeting and seeing dozens of shapeshifters like yourself throughout your life. And upon second glances, I saw that he _also_ had eye markings! That made me giddy beyond belief, and I almost started laughing way out loud.

Another form leapt down from a lower, nearby building. It was much shorter than the other one, but still in apparently the same trenchcoat, as far as I could see. (Of _course_, that was the first time I'd taken note of the trenchcoats. _Man_ I must've been spaced out!) This one, I could see (since it wasn't up against the sunset as much where he was standing) was either a brunette or dirty blonde, and seemed to be talking to the other figure about something. By the way his energy came across to me,– and I could only ever sense these things when I was _really_ into an animal forme, like I was at the moment from desperateness to get away and spaced-out-y-ness – he seemed to look up to the initial figure, both figuratively _and_ literally! I almost thought that he could have been a younger member of the species (because they _certainly_ weren't _human_, that was for sure; didn't smell, look, or even _act_ like normal ones.)

Unfortunately, I was still deep in thought at this point, and failed to notice the duo's discussion and movement very much. And _since_ I was deep in thought, my gaze eventually got cast to about off to the side of my fee – paws and I'd gotten myself spaced out even more; I've never known humans to get eyes like that, at least not through _normal_ breeding, anyway, and as I backed up further into the alleyway, I noted that they certainly didn't _smell_ like any species _I'd_ seen before when a breeze blew past them and slammed into me. And if I didn't get out of there soon, it'd _probably_ be mutual –

_Dang,_ I thought with an inaudible growling sigh and feeling a smooth-materialed boot bump into my rear behind me. Or rather, _I'd_ backed _into_ it, _I did it again!_ I mewed, cutely and questioningly, and looked over my shoulder, raising a paw and curling my tabby tail up.

Sure enough, there was the guy, standing over my cutey-kitten self with hands on his hips, giving me a cocked eyebrow and one curious look. He chuckled at my meow and cute little show of kitteny confusion. I made a frantic run for the alley's exit, making it only a few bounds before something metallic and silver slammed down in front of my face about a foot from the exit, and I skidded to a halt inches before it. I took a few steps back from it, seeing through a triangle made of the wall and the metallic thing blocking my path the young brunette-ish boy (is that the right word again?) bending over and picking up something rosy and geometric whose size made it fit snugly into his hand. He gave it an uncomprehending look. _Oh God,_ I thought, as he straightened up and put it into a pocket over his thigh, _I'm screwed. Again._

Unfortunately for me, the sun's light glinted off of the metal-thing – which I'd later recall and call some type of sword for lack of a better word – and I felt myself start to lean to the left as my vision blacked over.


	2. Waking in a Weird World Indeed

**Author's Note - whoo! Chapter 2, finally! I wound up re-reading this over and over again, and finally can post it ^.^ I know, should be working on Mystic Mindset, but hey, I've got a little Artist's Block -_-**

**Anyway, enjoy! XD And here's hoping I got the canons right!~**

* * *

Now, I'd _like _to say that I was even _partially_ conscious while the two of them lugged me back to home base, but nope! Generally, when I sleep or become unconscious, my senses of hearing, touch, and/or my instincts are usually on a high enough alert that I can be up and at the ready if something happens (which _can_ get annoying sometimes, considering that I could flinch awake if even a little branch gets snapped in the woods), but whatever had just happened had me out _like a light,_ which in hindsight wasn't as much a _bad _thing as it was a _refreshing_ thing when I eventually felt myself starting to come to.

My first few thoughts were something along the _clever, _clever lines of, _Ow, my head, _and then something like _Where the heck am I?,_ the latter resulting from how I felt sound waves and air particles on my still-elongated highly-sensitive ear feathers moving about after I spent a while being groggily awake. They 'bounced' more or less slowly here, indicating that I was probably in a very spacious room or chamber since they didn't have very much energy for bouncing about. Probably the_ next_ thing I noticed was how _plush_y the bed was! I mean _really;_ after spending a few months on a nice comfortable bed and_ then_ spending three days out in the woods on a pile of moss and leaves topped by a sleeping bag for the first time in months, _anything_ felt soft and plushy to me! Haha!

I spider-crawl-inched my left hand slowly to the side to see out of curiosity (and partially boredom) how wide it was and give myself a little more of a mental image of the room, since I hadn't opened my eyes yet – _bleh_, too comfy and tired for once _(so this is what laziness feels like…)._ It was a couple 'inchings' to my left before I felt my fingers step over a soft-sheeted cliff.

It _was_ quite a _nice_ bed, and spacious too, I summarized to myself, a little bit out of remorse since I'd _woken_ up, and I also felt that it was quite generous of them to have put me on something so nice 'n plush instead of in some random cell…whoever 'them' would turn out to be.

My right ear feathers suddenly flicked a bit at the sound of breathing: it appeared that my mental questioning was about to be answered. Well, my senses were all waking up more so now, at least a little, thank _God_; _that_ was a good thing, considering all this blessed-and-cursed curiosity, and you _know _what they say about _curiosity..._

It was then, too, that I decided to 'poke around my body' and see if there was anything else I could determine about the area or at _least_ just immediately _around _myself, out of curiosity again (Sigh, heheheh). I realized that I was laying down on my back on the bed's covers, hands folded over the top of my breastbone like a dead bride. Appropriate enough, I guessed, since I _was_ out cold. Had been, anyway.

A few more calm breaths off to the right had sent my ear feathers in another flinching _frenzy_. _Alright, al__right__! __God__,_ I thought irritably, focusing on that side… Welp, hearing and instincts told me that there was _something/someone_ on that side anyway, so I eased my right eye open oh-so-slightly to have a look.

At first my eyes flinched a little at the sudden light, but eventually they adapted to it and I was able to see that the Hedgehog-Demon guy was sitting there, arms crossed over his chest, in a white chair, against a white background – a wall, I presumed – in between a whitewashed door to his right (which I could only discern from the wall because of the visible crack between the door and wall and the _white _doorknob jutting out) and a whitewashed dresser to his left whose corner was just barely in my way of vision.

_Geez, these guys must like feng shui techniques or something,_ I thought, moving my gaze about the tiny bit of room I could see through one cracked eye.

He must've noticed my struggling-to-be-barely-open-so-is-slightly-twitching eye… well, _being open,_ because the next thing I know his head jerked up somewhat and he gasped in surprise. I blinked at him and opened my eyes the rest of the way, turning my head to the side and shifting so that I was on my side and in a more comfortable – yet still awkward, given my tired body an unfamiliar surroundings – position.

I could_ finally_ get a good look at the guy; unsilhouetted and everything! He had oddly styled hair, all spiked up backwards as if he'd been electrocuted from the front, just like I remembered from the sunset fight with those shadow Things, splitting green eyes, so eerily like mine, and triangle-teardrop eye markings, almost like the dual-stripes coming off of my own eyes, and the black lab-coat-looking thing he and the younger one were wearing before - at least I assumed it was the same one (why wear the same thing on multiple occai…? Oh wait. Pfft, hahaha! Nevermind!)

We just looked at each other for a few seconds, and that drove _me _up a _wall_ until I _finally_ propped myself up, put out a hand, and said in my usual, casual cheeriness, "Hi, I'm SkEye." After a couple of silent seconds, I started again and raised an eyebrow, "You are?"

After a few_ more _silent seconds, (ugh) he seemed to soften up a bit– at least _little _bit, anyway - and coolly said, " 'M Axel."

He _may _have said Axel, but that's not what_ I_ had heard! ~

I felt kind of wilted after that, since he didn't exactly shake my hand or anything, but still, I got him to say his name despite how he was apparently not supposed to be associating with me (I'd seen enough guards who were ordered the same thing to know what it looks like on a person), so that was something! He wasn't all high-and-mighty or absolutely order-obsessed, but wasn't absolutely lazy, either. His face portrayed him as a laid back person who generally gets crap done and annoys the heck out of 'higher-ups' or just people in general. I smiled internally at that 'facial reading', confident that I'd read it right (as I hardly ever get the chance to practice/do it on someone whom I don't already know).

I settled back down on the comfy bed and surprisingly-firm pillow, crossing my arms behind my head. "Welp, nice to meet ya, Lea! So where am I?"

His head jerked up again, quicker this time, and he gave me a wild-eyed look that I could almost see a twinge in. Was that of desperateness, or sadness? "How the heck do you know that name?"

I started to feel a little worried and confused, and I knitted my eyebrows together, propping back up on my elbows and looking at him. _Sigh_; and I had been so_ comfy_, too. "W-what do you mean? You just_ told_ me your name."

"Yes, but you said it wrong: it's Axel (Lea): A-X-E-L (L-E-A), got it memorized?"  
I nodded and gave a slight smile. "Yeah, Lea, I got it."

He made a frustrated noise and facepalmed with one hand, the other dropping down to hover near one of the chakrams propped up on either side of the chair. Probably just out as a safety precaution, I guessed; wasn't every day that you found something like me. He stood roughly, and I could tell by his body language and scent that he was just about bristling mad about something inside, like a demon or Neko who's tail you've just ground into the dirt with your heel on accident, but before he could (most likely) sit back down and sigh in a not-worth-it sort of manner, the younger member of his species I'd seen him with earlier cracked the door half open and popped his blond-brunette head in.

"Axel (Lea), we should probably get going," he said after giving me a brief glance. "Saïx is getting a little upset about us not having left for our mission already, and Demyx was just given guard duty for the day."

Lea looked at him when he'd popped himself in, and he let off an angry/annoyed sigh and deflated a little as the youngster's news quickly sunk in.

_Huh; guess he'll have to wait to beat me up later, _I thought casually, blinking at the two, _or at least _try_ to. _Thank God I didn't chuckle (out loud) at my unintentionally sarcastic,_ innocently-_thought thought.

He waved a hand downwards towards the weapon-wheels propped up against the chair dejectedly, and they vanished with an odd flash. _Man, these guys must use summon spells _all_ the _time! I thought, a little bit fascinated and just barely disbelieving. I actually smiled a little with a light, private laugh.

Hot Head the Hedgehog left the room, and in his place switched in a man with a cool face, quite nice, clear blue eyes, and pale tawny hair like the young one had, except morphed into a rounded peak on top. I was pretty sure the style was called a mullet…? This guy was_ also_ wearing a bath robe or whatever kind of robe it was; rather repetitious, I felt, just like I always do when I see people in uniforms - and quite a dumb one, if not odd, at that.

"About _time_ they gave me an easy job!" he muttered to himself as he slumped down into the chair and the door clicked shut behind the other two Whatevers. A large instrument I recognized as being in the 'more-exotic-guitar' kind of family flashed into existence in his hands and lap, a deeper blue color than a clear sky and spiked at the neck's end three ways, almost like a spine-chilling cross. Looking over its 'belly', I noticed a curvy design on the bottom, reminding me of the violet star-crownlike design on my hair's bangs or an upside-down heart. Huh. Before playing, though, he seemed to remember that he wasn't the only entity in the room (or the world, for that matter) and suddenly looked up at me, asking unsurely, "Uhm…m-mind if I play?"

Half in a stupor from the last guy's frickin' raging, it took me a second to realize that he'd spoken to me and I gave a few rapid blinks in realization. "….O-oh! Oh! _Oh!_ You mean _me!?_ Yeah no, no, go on right ahead, don't mind me. I'm fine with it. I _like _music," I replied finally, the majority of that nonchalantly. I settled back on the bed again as I ended my sentence and gave a dismissing wrist-flick-ish wave to the air, content with just listening to the guy play and 'chill-laxing' (as I've heard a few DF members say) for a few hours, or however long it was that they were going to keep me locked up in there. After a second thought, though, I added thoughtfully, "Eh, s-sorry, i-it's just that the other dude was a little…_eh_…"

"Hot headed?" the newer one offered, pausing in the buzzing strumming and looking back up again. I rolled over to face him, resting my head in my right hand and mentally kicking myself for not recognizing the music. _"Yeah,_ well, Axel (Lea) can get like that sometimes. Dunno quite why, though; he's generally cool about stuff." He raised a thoughtful eyebrow at me after a second. "Hey…what'd you _do_ to him, anyway? It looked like you had him pretty ruffled up."

Huh? _Me?_" I exclaimed, sitting up and putting a hand to my chest. After a considering pause, I calmed down and started to lay back down, folding my arms behind my head again and looking at the ceiling, "Well, uh, I dunno; all I did was introduce myself and ask 'im his name, 'n then he said 'I'm Lea' and I only frickin' said, 'well, nice to meet ya Lea' 'n then he sai – "

"Whoah whoah whoah whoah whoah. You called him _Lea?_" New Guy got a surprised look on his face, leaning over his instrument a little and putting out a hand to stop my rambling (verbally and gesturingly. That's what I get from living in Italy for a few months!).

"Well _yeah_: that's his _name_, isn't it?" I laughed, looking back to him. I mean really, it's not like they used secret names around here or anything, right? Only Egyptians do/did that. I just _said_ what I'd _heard!_

"Well, no; _actually_, it's Axel (Lea). How'd you know his Somebody's name?"

"Yeah, Lea. That's what I said. An' a Some-ba-whatnow?"

He sighed and rubbed the back of his head. Apparently this was a complicated topic. Was it just me? Why had everyone been trying to fricking correct me today? Did I have magic dust or something in my ears or feathers again? I hit my left palm against the side of my head a few experimental times, and then looked at it. Nope; nothing on it besides a few strand-things from my ear feathers. Huh, well then…

"Look," he finally said. "Uh, forget the whole Somebody thing. It's a little too, uhm, weird." He'd verbally waved the notion of explaining away. Was this the Lazy Boy or something? Every group's got one, as far as_ I've_ seen over the years. "Anyway…say, you wouldn't happen to be able to pull out some paper or anything out of your pocket, would you?" Before I could ask why, and especially _how,_ he knew that, he continued, "It got reported that you summoned a weapon before you blacked out, and then we, uh, just pretty much figured you had something in your pockets there." He pointed with a finger of the hand at the instrument's neck towards my vest's pockets. They're enchanted; I'd enchanted them myself a long time ago, I'm pretty sure, and so they held just about anything. Heck, I could pull out a _mountain_ of paper things if he wanted me to. I looked at my pockets too, thinking over how they might've learned that…well, considering other times that this similarly had happened, they'd probably have tried to search me...

"Someone stuck their hands in my pockets, didn't they? Almost get their hand stuck?"

He nodded, went wide-eyed, and then burst out laughing, slapping his knee and rocking over his not-quite-guitar. "Y-you're kidding," he gasped out, wiping at his eye. "Ha-has this happened to you before or something?" He started laughing again.

I just about laughed myself, tilting my head from side to side and turning my eyes up in a _'more or less, yeah'_ gesture. "They're enchanted. Go figure."

He chuckled a few more times and regained his composure. "Phew. You know, you're really something, Miss…uh…sorry, I didn't catch your name."

"SkEye," I replied with a smile, proudly adding in, "SkEye Death." _This_ guy was quite alright, anyway. At least _he_ had the decency of politeness.

"SkEye, huh? Wow, that's a weird one. I'm Demyx." He stuck out a hand over the instrument's body, but again, I didn't hear the name 'Demyx' being said, but instead something else.

I repeated what I'd heard as a question for confirmation, "right?"

He sighed, more of an audible _'guh…'_ this time. "Here…can you get that paper out?"

I just about hopped up out of my seat in remembrance (well, bed seat…well, laying down…well, oh whatever!), looking down at my vest pockets, and rearing my hands up. "Oh! Oh yeah! Hold on a sec." I moved to sit on my knees and dove the left hand into its corresponding pocket of my black, witchy vest, making a thinking/straining face while I wiggled my fingers about in it. Welp, it wasn't at the surface, so I'd have to will my most-recently-used journal out from the depths of My Pocket.

I closed my eyes and focused, picturing the leather journal that I had just started a few weeks (or was it a few days?) ago. (Yep, definitely weeks.) I saw quite clearly in my mind's eye the odd, splotchy, colorful-sparkly-pastel background of magic that was seen when looking into my pocket [or at magic in general] directly (without getting gravitated in yourself, of course), and against it the brown leather journal and charcoal pencil magically pinned to its cover, unable to be moved by anyone but me thanks to yet another enchantment. My fingers soon closed around its spine, and opening my eyes, I started tugging at my pocket's opening and trying to maneuver the journal out of the smaller-than_-it-_was pocket.

My current watchguard gasped as I pulled it out, tore out a page in the back, set it on top of the front cover, took the pencil off, flipped it so that the eraser faced him, and handed them over.

He set them down gingerly on his instrument (which I_ finally _remembered was an Indian instrument called a sitar!) and jotted something down: two names in capital letters, A-X-E-L and D-E-M-Y-X. "See? Not _Lea,_ Axel. Axel and Demyx. Got 'em now?"

I blinked, wide-eyed. As I'd read the two names jotted down on the paper, I'd felt something _literally_ _click,_ and then _snap_ into place in the back of my head yet again, and the air and space around and above the words began to shimmer a little.

_Whoah_. 

I blinked a few times and looked back at the written names. They were normal again - not a spark of magic - _or magick -_ to be seen around or on them.

Heck, I knew that names and words had power and such, but _dang!_ That was odd (and _that_ coming from _me!_).

"So," I started finally, eyes glued to the names for a few more moments while that all sunk in. I looked back to him. "You're…Demyx, then?" It had been very odd saying the name, _truly,_ for the first time. I'd said it slowly, as if trying and tasting it out on my tongue. Well, it _was _kind of hard to say it the first time, so to me, the manner made sense!

He smiled, nodded, and then comically patted me on the head. I squished my eyes closed a little in a flinch as he did so. "What do you know? She _can_ be taught!"

"Pfft!" I chortled, batting his patting hand away with both of mine like a kitten. I laughed a bit, "Oh, shut up!" We both wound up laughing. "Welp, nice ta'meet you to, Demyx," I said after composing myself, and finally shook hands in greeting with somebody around here – heartily, in my case, and with both hands.

Eventually I plopped back down on the bed, relaxing a while as Demyx (there's that weird name again. Second time tried, 'n I got it!~) played a few relaxing melodies on his beautiful sitar. It very much so relaxed me, and kinda tickled my ear feathers with vibrations after having not heard such music in a long time. I made a pact with myself to pull out and play my _own_ sitar, and any other instruments I had that I'd forgotten about owning, and go sit in a tree for a day (or two). _Sigh_, sounded like pure bliss to me.

I inhaled through my nose deeply and sighed.

And got caught off guard by a smell like a cross between a running brook and a depressed person; and I'd certainly known both well.

I sat up suddenly and scented again - the same strong, nearby, almost-near-lightly-rancid smell. And noticed the human undertone in it.

_Sni-sni-sni-sniiiiff_. What the heck? I turned my headin a few half circles, trying to pinpoint the smell and/or figure out what the hades it _was,_ and Demyx (still felt weird to think it at this particular point) looked back up. "What's wrong?" he asked, furrowing his brow.

"_Sniff,_ I smell – _sniff,_ I smell - _sniiiiffff_ …I smell _something,"_ I replied simply. I was sure Nicole would have gotten PO'd at me for a _sniff-_ing sentence like that, and I _knew Zenobia_ would have facepalmed _immensely, _heheh_. _God thing the thoughts of home didn't start getting to me in the midst of all that scent! I went wide-eyed, breathing in slowly a few times in disbelief, and started to giggle, "I can smell again…I can_ smell_ again!"

Before he could say anything, I snatched Demyx up by the hands, pouring the poor sitar onto the floor, and started spinning and skipping us around near the foot of the bed, pretty much chanting, "I can smell again, I can smell again, I can _smell_ again!" and making both our black coats flare out in half-circles.

When I stopped skipping with glee and spinning on the spot, I hugged the bewildered and dizzy Demyx tightly, again in _absolute glee._ My senses were like everything to me, and only after the fact of them all starting to wake up completely again after an odd black-out like _that _did I realize how much I'd missed them, how much I needed them for my surroundings. Well, being a (former) nomadic, on-the-run shapeshifter, it is_ never_ surprising that I rely on them so much, and it wasn't really a big shock or new _news _thatday, either.

After a quick mainly-shoulder teddy-bear hug of ecstaticness, I looked him straight in the face again, still holding him by the shoulders and still _high_ on excitement! "By the way, what _are _you? You smell like rough water and murk, with a bit of a human _base _smell."

He looked bewildered for a second, dizzy as heck from my elation and possibly my speedy speaking, and he looked like he was about to explain it his best in that _dizzy _state when there was a knock on the door, and I heard Hot-Head's voice holler from the other side, partially impatient but otherwise nonchalant. "Hey, Demyx! The Superior's ready to see this thing."


End file.
